Product category:
Management and Administration Software and Systems
News Release from: Chess Logistics Technology | Subject: Empirica warehouse management system
Edited by the Printingtalk Editorial
Team on 24 March 2008
Polestar Improves Production
Traceability
Polestar is claimed to have improved the management and traceability of production items and standardised its stock handling procedures at its Sheffield gravure printing operation.
Those developments are said to have been realised by the introduction of the Empirica warehouse management system and radio frequency data terminals from Chess Logistics Technology According to the company, Polestar Sheffield now has real-time control and visibility of items used to prepare magazine and promotional packs for its clients and it can generate reports with greater detail for an enhanced service
This article was originally published on Printingtalk on 25 Oct 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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Polestar wanted to improve its ability to monitor production performance and provide publishers and advertisers with increasingly detailed information about the number of magazines and inserts, or onserts prepared so that they can verify campaign effectiveness and response levels.
The paper system that the company used, although effective, did not have the benefit of real time information flow and traceability, said Chess Logistics.
Tracking the receipt and movement of stock items in the production plant using a warehouse management system and radio frequency (RF) terminals offered a suitable solution to the problem and after evaluating products from a number of suppliers, Polestar selected Empirica.
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Polestar Sheffield is a high volume contract printer that produces colour supplement magazines for national weekly and Sunday newspapers in the UK.
In addition to printing the magazines the company prepares, collates and packs related inserts and onserts, such as direct mail catalogues and reader offers.
Much of the information is only available close to publication date so the company has to maintain just-in-time operations round the clock at its plant to meet deadlines.
It aims to produce 11 million magazines and up to 33 million inserts each week.
Mike Brook, Polestar Sheffield's site production improvement manager, explained: "We need to provide a product history from storage through to the completed magazine and Empirica does this perfectly for us.
We are a printer, not a warehouse, but Empirica has forced us to be more standardised in how we pass and track items." He added: "Chess was not the cheapest but competitive and what we liked most was the ease of use for operatives who have a range of expertise with computers.
The hand-held terminals were very intuitive and had a straight forward interface.
It can be quite frightening for people who are bit nervous around computers but the whole process has gone pretty smoothly." The Sheffield production plant operates 24 hours-a-day, seven days-a-week to meet the workload undertaken by Polestar each week.
The warehouse section incorporates high bay and narrow aisle storage for up to 1,800 pallets and block storage areas for bulk items.
The combination of Empirica and RF hand-held bar code scanning terminals enables Polestar to log and verify stock movements in real time with total accuracy, said Chess Logistics.
Polestar can access updated information at any time and produce reports for internal use and to provide an audit for its customers.
Mike Brook said: "Empirica's ability to provide a stock movement history was a big selling point.
Our procedures are already more transparent and we will be more efficient and professional in the future and especially during the busiest periods." Chess Logistics said that although the system configuration is relatively standard in warehouse management terms, Polestar asked for a modification to some of the reporting functions to provide specific information, introduce additional receipting features to accommodate the nature of some onsert items and configure the task management routines to ensure that the contents of a complete pack could be prioritised as a group, rather than singly to ensure production machinery could be utilised at optimum performance.
The company added that the inherent adaptability of the Empirica system allowed those changes to be introduced without affecting the core application, which accelerated overall implementation time and ensured costs were controlled.
Brook explained: "The reporting side is very good and useful for proving a product has moved from A to B.
Empirica has also helped to make stock checks much easier.
We used to do a full check every month but now we have perpetually live stock visibility." Polestar and Chess agreed a four-phase implementation plan that began last November.
The first phase covers the receipt and storage of production stock items, including consumables, such as polythene film for encapsulating magazine pack, strapping for bundles and cardboard packaging.
The second phase covers the delivery of those items from storage areas to the machinery that compiles the packs, whilst the third and fourth will involve the movement of printed products to finishing machines and the despatch of completed loads.
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